Case Number 05355

STORY OF WOMEN

The Charge

"When a nation has gangrene, there's no place for sentimentality. We
must sever the gangrened limb." -- Colonel Chabert (Jacques Brunet)

Opening Statement

Claude Chabrol is known as one of the fathers of the French New Wave
movement. Perhaps lesser known than some of his counterparts such as Truffaut
and Godard, Chabrol has had highs and lows in his 46-year career. One of the
high points came in 1988 with Story of Women, a well told tale of the
life of one woman and how her choices and the social environment in which she
makes them serve to change her life.

Facts of the Case

In 1940 the Nazis overtook much of France. In the wake of the capture of
Paris, the French installed a new government more amenable to the Nazi's
demands, in the city of Vichy. This government bowed under the pressure of Nazi
Germany, rounding up thousands of Jews to be interned and disbanding the French
military. Needless to say, this Vichy government was not well liked. It is still
remembered as a government that was corrupt, a government that was cruel, and a
government that wreaked havoc on the lives of many. Claude Chabrol's Story of
Women tells the tale of Marie-Jeanne Latour (Isabelle Huppert, The
Bedroom Window), a middle aged housewife with two children, struggling to
make ends meet in this time and this political situation.

With her husband away fighting, Marie has little means to provide for her
children until she stumbles upon a way to make money. She helps a distraught
neighbor, pregnant with an unwanted child, to perform an illegal abortion. For
her services, Marie is given a phonograph. Recognizing the potential to change
her family's financial situation, Marie slowly begins to advertise her services.
She tells a prostitute and acquaintance named Lulu (Marie Trintignant) that she
can help, should Lulu ever find herself "in a bind." Soon, people
begin showing up at Marie's door requesting Marie's aid -- people referred
directly by Lulu and, eventually, people who have heard about Marie second or
third hand. Marie questions no one and performs abortions for them all.

Having gotten a taste of money and of what it can buy her in this time of
war and food "coupons," Marie expands her operations. She begins
renting one of her rooms to Lulu so she can provide her "services" to
men. Just as his home has become a haven for prostitutes and the unwilling
pregnant, Marie's husband Paul (François Cluzet) returns from the front and
the story begins to get more interesting. Marie is uninterested in her husband
and does what she can to ignore him. She does not love him and now that she has
a means of providing for herself she has no plans to let him influence her life.
Little does she know that his jealousy will impact her life severely and lead
her to discover just how unforgiving the Vichy government can be.

The Evidence

When I first described this film to my friends, I described it as a movie
based on a true story about abortion and France and Nazis in World War II. I had
it all wrong. While each of these subjects certainly appears in the film,
Story of Women is more the story of one woman and her struggles under the
watchful eye of the Vichy government. Every day she meets other women who live
with the same struggles and the same obstacles, and the story becomes one of the
women who must simultaneously rear the children of absent husbands and
find some way to feed those children and themselves.

Surprisingly, the methods that Marie chooses to earn money for her family
never become the focus of Story of Women. In fact, the first abortion in
the film happens so nonchalantly that one doesn't stop to think about the impact
it will have on Marie's life. By avoiding the volatile issues of the morality of
abortion and prostitution, the film allows the viewer to focus more completely
on the characters being portrayed. While personal stances on these moral issues
will certainly color how many view Marie, Isabelle Huppert's performance never
allows one to wholly despise or embrace the character.

Huppert effortlessly portrays a woman driven by many forces. She is at times
driven by lust for money, lust for power, and lust for men; but she is also
driven by a desire to provide for her children, a desire to help her neighbor,
and a desire to be free of the roles placed on her by society and circumstance.
For her performance in the role, Huppert won Best Actress at the Venice Film
Festival.

Another fine performance comes from the least likely of places, a child.
Guillaume Foutrier plays Pierrot, Marie's son, who is the only male constant in
Marie's life. Pierrot is both affectionately loved and callously ignored by his
mother; Foutrier makes the emotional ups and downs of this life subtly apparent.
In doing so, he somehow manages to avoid the melodramatic pitfalls of many
actors his age. His face is mildly reminiscent of David Bennent, who played
Oskar Matzerath in The Tin Drum, but avoids Matzerath's pantomime
expressions of emotion. Foutrier's performance gives insight into not only his
own life, but that of his mother. Sadly, it seems that this was Guillaume
Foutrier's only film -- I can find no information about him other than his name,
and the suggestion that Pierrot may have been played both by him and by someone
who is likely his brother, Nicolas Foutrier.

The more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that it was
individual characters, Marie especially, that make Story of Women an
interesting film. How then does one account for the film's title and its use of
the plural form "women"? I wrestled with this, trying to find some
deeper meaning in the film based on this title. Certainly, Story of Women
is meant to represent the lives of the women who remained "on the home
front" in Vichy France during World War II. Beyond that, the abortion
aspect of the plot undoubtedly deals most directly with women. Do these things
make Story of Women an appropriate title?

Consider the French title, Une Affaire de Femmes. Now, my
French is limited, but I would be inclined to translate this as something more
akin to "A Women's Affair" or "Women's Business," both
titles that better embody the implications that I think the English title is
meant to convey. In this sense, it can refer directly to the act of abortion,
but also to the fact that this film is most directly the story of the women of
France in the year 1941. The situations these women face everyday take
precedence over the political climate that helped get them there, a secondary
concern that makes the film more historically and socially relevant.

Now that we know Story of Women is worth watching, let me tell you
how this film looks on disc. Story of Women is over twenty years old.
Time has treated it well, as have the people at Home Vision Entertainment. If
the trailer included on the disc is any indication of the film's state before
restoration, the people at Home Vision Entertainment worked wonders, and they
should be commended for their clean and aesthetically pleasing transfer and
restoration work. There are a few scenes where one can find minor blemishes if
actively looking, but nothing distracting in the least.

The audio for Story of Women has also fared well over time. It is
presented in the original French mono and is clear and free of any major
distracting noise. In all, Home Vision Entertainment has given an under
appreciated film a worthy presentation, and the presentation does not stop with
the video and the audio. On tap are a respectable slate of extras that include
comments and recollections from the director, a producer, a writer and a couple
of critics.

The first, and perhaps most notable extra, is a collection of scene comments
by director Claude Chabrol. Chabrol provides his insight into a number of scenes
from the movie and discusses the broader themes, without feeling the need to
talk constantly through the whole film. The result is a commentary that is never
boring nor without interesting things to say. On the flip side, the scene
comments and the associated scenes only last about 23 minutes, a fraction of
Story of Women's running time. Still, I prefer this approach as we get
only what Chabrol thought was important to say. An additional benefit is that we
get glimpses of Chabrol as he records his comments. There's something oddly
entertaining about seeing this aging director as he is now, talking about a film
he made decades ago but obviously remembers fondly.

There are two accompanying interviews: one with writer Francis Szpiner and
the other with producer Marin Karmitz. Karmitz tells of the troubles that he and
Claude Chabrol had in marketing Story of Women in the United States. The
film deals with polarizing issues, including abortion and prostitution, and
Karmitz attributes the trouble they had distributing the film to these issues.
In the end, Karmitz founded MK2 Distributors just to ensure this film had a
stateside release .

Francis Szpiner's interview is both longer and less entertaining. He's a
less engaging storyteller and much of what he says is not immediately pertinent
to one's understanding of the film. In the end, there are worthwhile facts to be
gleaned from his interview about the true story of Marie Latour, French history
-- and what drew Szpiner, as a writer, to the film.

Also included on the disc are a presentation by film critic Joël Magny
and the original French theatrical trailer. The presentation by Magny is brief
and tells us little about the story that cannot be learned elsewhere on the
disc. He does, however, rightly extol the talents of Isabelle Huppert and
comment on Chabrol's well-known feelings about the Vichy regime.

The trailer is more interesting than most. Though I can almost hear the
cheesy overdubbed English voice that characterizes foreign film trailers in the
US, this native French trailer has very little speaking at all. Images from the
film play across the screen set to joyful music. And then, mid trailer, the
music stops and there appears a grey image of Marie alone on the screen, tears
rolling down her face. In an angry, weary voice she says, in French, "Holy
Mary, full of shit. Rotten is the fruit of thy womb." Anyone with a working
knowledge of the Catholic Church will immediately hear the plain reference to
the Hail Mary. The reference is a powerful one, and it surely piqued the
interest of many who saw the trailer in the late 1980s. Its context within the
story serves only to make it more powerful.

Lastly, included in the insert are an essay by Wheeler Winston Dixon
regarding Chabrol and the film and a director's filmography. The filmography is
a throwaway extra in an age when most anyone could find such a list on the
internet in thirty seconds flat. Nonetheless, it is interesting to look at the
span of Chabrol's long career and see the diverse subjects and genres he has
covered in his films. Wheeler Winston Dixon's essay is much like the interviews
on the disc itself: It contains a few gems -- interesting tidbits about the
film, the director and the story -- but much of the essay is easily and quickly
forgotten.

Closing Statement

Though a few of the extras may be easily forgotten, the film most certainly
is not. Story of Women is a masterfully told tale of the life of a woman
in Vichy France, which through her life explores broader issues of morality and
corruption. It is a film that has been largely neglected over the past 25 years,
and one can only hope that this DVD release will bring it the audience it
deserves. Though not light viewing, Story of Women is an easy film to
watch and to appreciate, and watch it you should. Rent it, borrow it, or add it
to your collection; any way you watch it, you're in for a treat.

The Verdict

All parties are free to go. Home Vision Entertainment is commended for its
work on this particular case, as are the director, cast, and crew.